Fences could be best route to saving African lions, U researcher says

After 35 years of field research in the Serengeti plains, Craig Packer, director of the Lion Research Center at the University of Minnesota, has lost all patience with the romance of African wilderness. Fences, he says, are the only way to stop the precipitous and continuing decline in the number of African lions.

"Reality has to intrude," he said. "Do you want to know the two most hated species in Africa, by a mile? Elephants and lions."

They destroy crops and livestock, Packer said, and sometimes, in the case of lions, actually eat people.

Packer's goal is to save lions. Fencing them in, away from people and livestock, is the best way to do that, he believes, both for conservation and economics. He made that argument in a paper this month in Ecology Letters, along with 57 co-authors, including most of the top lion scientists and conservationists.

The paper lays out the value of fences in clear terms, although it stops short of endorsing fencing as the only sensible option. That is Packer's own view. With a growing human population whose rights must be respected, he says, open and free co-existence with lions is not practical, nor is it fair to the humans who have to live with the big cats.

In conversation, Packer goes beyond the measured scientific prose of the paper, venting his frustration with the fantasy often offered to tourists of a free and unfettered African wilderness.

"That's 130 years ago," he said. "I'm just trying to push people to

Lions in Africa have lost 75 percent of their range in the past 100 years, problems between people and lions have increased, and some populations suffer from genetic isolation. Panthera, a conservationist organization devoted to big cats, estimates there are 30,000 lions in Africa today, down from 200,000 lions 100 years ago.

Some populations are doing well, such as those in the Serengeti, which is not fenced, and those in large and small reserves in South Africa.

Using surveys from 42 sites in 11 countries in Africa, the authors of the paper concluded that without fencing, it would cost $2,000 per square kilometer, or less than half a square mile, annually to keep lions at 50 percent of their potential numbers. With fencing, the cost would be $500 a year to maintain 80 percent of their potential numbers.

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Fences could be best route to saving African lions, U researcher says